President Obama and the Democrats 40
Republicans in Congress 35
Both are equally to blame 24
Don’t Know 1

APPROVAL/DISAPPROVAL OBAMA

Approve 34

Disapprove 62

Don't know 4

APPROVAL/DISAPPROVAL MARK PRYOR

Approve 34

Disapprove 48

Don't know 18

Grim for Democrats, but could be worse. At least Pryor doesn't start behind. At least he has a proven extremist for an opponent, unlike the plain vanilla John Boozman who took down Blanche Lincoln.

It does look like all-Obama-all-the-time remains a good strategy for the Republican Party. If a plurality of Arkansans can blame him rather than the Tea Party Republicans for the government shutdown, there's nothing they won't believe. The rest of the country sees things differently. Secede!

Jay Barth, commenting on the poll, sees a Pryor silver lining. With anti-Obama and anti-Washington feeling as strong as it is, it's somewhat remarkable that he has a lead (nominal, it's an effective dead heat) at all. Obama's disapproval rating is about where it's always been. Voters ARE differentiating between him and Obama and Cotton is not dominating among independents, Brock notes.

Brock doesn't say if he'll roll out the gubernatorial question tomorrow or not. UPDATE: He'll release them tonight at 10 p.m. on his Talk Business show on Fox 16, unless a baseball game pushes the show back a while.

Wesley Clark, the retired NATO commander from Little Rock, writes critically today in the Washington Post about Donald Trump as commander in chief.

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What's purported to be a final-words essay from condemned prisoner Kenneth Williams was distributed today by Deborah Robinson, a freelance journalist in Arkansas. He reflects on his execution, his victims, reactions of inmates and big servings of fried chicken, which he says are given to all inmates on execution days.

The Wall Street Journal reports here on how Russian troll farms have exploited cracks in social media for propaganda purposes, appropriating images for re-use in their disinformation campaigns. Arkansas angle:

June 2018 is the expected publication date for a novel collaboration by former President Bill Clinton and crime writer James Patterson.

Slideshows

Arkansas vs Ole Miss at War Memorial stadium in Little Rock, Saturday, Oct. 13, 2018. After leading for much of the game, Arkansas lost 37-33 when Ole Miss scored the game winning Touchdown with less that 2 minutes left.